New Haven Independent

The luncheon marked the sixth year of business at Empower New Haven, which the federal government set up in New Haven to try out a new model of fighting poverty. It eschewed the old model of relying on government to carry out plans on its own that often keep people dependent. Instead, it called for business leaders, city government and neighborhood people to work together to use federal antipoverty dollars to boost (and leverage new investment from) private efforts, and to help people in poor and working-class neighborhoods set themselves up in homes or jobs or businesses.

Bell, New Haven’s social service chief, alluded to the dysfunction that marred Empower New Haven’s first years. There were board fights, resignations, finger-pointing, an executive director pushed out of the job amid charges of political meddling — and millions of federal dollars meant for the poor going unspent.

Empower New Haven stopped making that kind of news a few years ago under new Executive Director Althea Marshall Richardson (shown here at Monday’s luncheon). It has been making a difference, rather than making news, ever since.

(Click here to read Empower New Haven’s newly issued annual report.)

Pretty much any positive projects or interesting experiments you hear about in New Haven’s lower-income neighborhoods these days — from the blue-collar families buying homes on Frances Hunter Drive and the initiation of “Individual Development Accounts” helping working families save money to buy homes or pursue higher education; to successful efforts to keep manufacturers in the city or a ground-breaking study on the barriers to self-sufficiency built into state aid programs — have resulted in part from Empower New Haven’s money and/ or advice.

That message resounded Monday not just from boosters but from the federal official who directly monitors Empower New Haven, Housing and Urban Development (HUD) regional Field Director Julie Fagan.

“The program here,” Fagan (pictured) told the dozens of New Haveners filling the Graduates Club’s two main downstairs dining rooms, “is doing what we intended.” (Note to Independent typo-catchers: The club’s formal name does have an “s” at the end of “Graduate.”)

Fagan spoke of how the Empowerment Zone program aimed to use federal money to get other community institutions to spend money on the poor and working families. Empower New Haven’s $25 million in HUD money has gone toward partnerships with other groups that have contributed another $25 million, according to Richardson.

HUD’s Fagan also said Empower New Haven has done a good job with a newer program aimed at helping people buy first homes by contributing to their downpayments. At least two other communities’ Empowerment programs have lost their money for that program because they failed to produce results, according to Fagan. Empower New Haven did well enough to receive years of renewed funding.

The message about Empower New Haven’s results also came from a woman on the receiving end, Yaditza LaViera. LaViera, who’s 26 and works for the city health department, just bought a home on Lloyd Street. She lives there and also rents out part of the house. She wouldn’t have been able to afford the home if not for help from Empower.

Homeownership remains a major challenge for cities. HUD’s Fagan pointed out that 70 percent of the country’s households own their own homes. But only about 50 percent of households headed by racial minorities do. And the number is lower for urban families.

There’s still a lot of “Empower”-ing left to do.